


The Stranger (Where You Once Stood)

by bubblemoon66



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: Abyssinia/Skulduggery Pleasant - mentioned, Angst, Book 10: Resurrection (Skulduggery Pleasant) Spoilers, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Mental Breakdown, Pre-Canon, Skulduggery Pleasant Fic Exchange 2018, The Dead Men (Skulduggery Pleasant), Vignette, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-05 03:02:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17316836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubblemoon66/pseuds/bubblemoon66
Summary: A series of vignettes set during the war, that focus on Ghastly and Skulduggery's relationship after the latter's death.





	The Stranger (Where You Once Stood)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [talk_less_smilemore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/talk_less_smilemore/gifts).



> So this was written as a pinch-hit for the 2018 Skulduggery Pleasant Fic Exchange. Someone dropped out last minute, so I had to write something in a rush. It's not complete, but I will be writing a further chapter with some Vile angst in it because that's what Talk_less_smilemore actually requested. I'm just desperate to get something out. So look at this as a preview of good things to come.

_**i.**_ The sun was slow to rise on Samhain. It lingered on the horizon, the light barely enough to illuminate the barren branches and fallen leaves and the two men hidden among them. 

The men, old friends, sat huddled together. They did not move. They did not speak. They waited in the dull grey twilight, stiff and silent, time stretched before them as endless as the sea. It felt like they had been there an eternity, although Ghastly knew only a single sleepless night had passed in this copse. 

A chill had seeped into both their skins, numbing their limbs and discolouring their lips,  but neither dared to light a fire. The risk of discovery was too great this close to the castle. A glimmer of firelight or a wisp of smoke and they would be flushed out of the woods like wild game. Hunted and slaughtered, no quarter given.

That thought brought with it a different kind of chill. The kind no flame could fix. The kind that wrapped icy tendrils around your heart and squeezed slowly. _Dread._ It was a familiar feeling, one every soldier knew. That moment when you knew the worst was yet to come and there was nothing to do but to wait for it. 

So they waited. 

Eventually, dawn came, as it always did. And time moved again. 

Sometime later there was a rustle, twigs and leaves snapping underfoot as someone hurried through the woods. Despite the numbness and the exhaustion, Ghastly was on his feet in an instant. His fists raised, ready to fight. His companion, Erskine, drew a dagger. 

A man appeared between two wizened hawthorns across the clearing. He was breathing heavily, the air coming out of him in great shuddering gasps that were visible in the cold morning air. His clothing was ragged, muddied. His face blotchy, wide-eyed and unfamiliar. 

 "It's me," he gasped.

Ghastly and Erskine lowered their arms, recognising the voice, but they did not relax. They could not relax. Not now, not yet. 

"Did you find him?" Ghastly asked.  

Hopeless, for it was Hopeless standing before them, opened his mouth. His lips moved, but no words came out. Instead, there was an awful choking noise.  And Ghastly knew the answer to his question. 

Dread seized his heart, freezing it afresh. There was a second of stiffness and silence, between heartbeats. Another moment where time seemed to stretch endlessly. And then Erskine moved, the dagger falling from his grasp as he rushed to embrace Hopeless. And time moved with him.  The spell broken. Ghastly's heart ached, but it kept beating, as it always had. 

"What happened?" Erskine asked his own voice breaking.

"I'm sorry," said Hopeless, "I was. Too late. I couldn't. Save him. I'm sorry. I tried. I'm sorry. I tried."

Something inside Ghastly gave way. His vision blurred, and he felt hot tears on his cheeks. He did not want to hear this. He did not want to know what had happened. But he couldn't not know either, not knowing would be worse. Not knowing would eat away at him for as long as he lived. 

It was a while before Hopeless could get out enough words out to tell them what had happened. He did not have the full story, and he had to backtrack on himself several times. Some of it Ghastly had already guessed, some of it he had feared. 

_Skulduggery Pleasant had been led into a trap._ _Skulduggery Pleasant had been captured by Nefarian Serpine._ _Skulduggery Pleasant had watched his family be butchered._ _Skulduggery Pleasant had been tortured for days._ _Skulduggery Pleasant had died screaming._ _Skulduggery Pleasant was dead. He had been dead for over a week._

"We need to recover the body," said Erskine. "We can't let those bastards have him. Any of them. They're our's. They deserve a proper burial." 

Hopeless shook his head, "I tried. There is no body. They burnt him, they burnt all of them, last night. Then they threw the remains in the river, for the current's to sweep away. I couldn't stop them. I was too late, even for that."

Ghastly sunk to the floor. Lowering himself slowly, leaning on the trunk of a tree. He knelt there, in the damp dead leaves, and buried his head in his hands.

Hopeless came to sit in the dirt beside him, resting his head on Ghastly's shoulder. He could feel the man's tears seeping through his shirt.  Erskine moved to his other side, placing a shaking arm around his back. 

"What do we do now?" whispered Erskine. 

Ghastly didn't know the answer to that question. None of them did. What else could they do but grieve? 

 

 

 

**_ii._  **Months passed. Then a year. Then another. Battles were fought. Some they won, some they lost. But dawn came, regardless, as it always did. And Ghastly's heart ached, but it kept beating, as it always had.

There were rumours about Skulduggery's death from the start. It started out as a whisper on the wind. Tales from far off lands in foreign tongues. A spirit, a wraith, the repear himself appearing on the battlefield; killing legion after legion of Mevolent's soldiers. Fortresses flooded. Strongholds sweep away. Towns engulfed in flame.  

Ghastly took the stories with a pinch of salt. It wasn't that he unreservedly disbelieved them. The world was a myriad of strange and terrible wonders, it would be arrogant to believe he had seen all there was to see in only a century of life. But he knew the minds of terrified and dying men. Their heads were full of tricks and shadows. They saw horrors where there were none, and sometimes too they saw hope when there was none. 

The stories moved closer to home, growing more consistent as time went on. People Ghastly knew told him tales of death personified.  Good, honest men with shadows under their eyes and in their hearts. 

And then one day death had a name:  _Skulduggery Pleasant_. Here to wreak vengeance upon all those responsible for his violent untimely death. Some called him salvation, others destruction. Ghastly called it nonsense. He believed in the undead. How could he not when he had faced them in battle himself? But believing that the ghost of Skulduggery still haunted this world was beyond him. If he accepted that, then he accepted that his oldest dearest friend had not found peace. And that was too terrible a thing to contemplate. 

"I saw him," said Erskine one day. 

Ghastly and Hopeless looked up, to the tent entrance where Erskine now stood. Pale and shaking. Shirt stained with a stranger's gore.  An ugly purple bruise blossoming on his temple.

"Saw who?" asked Hopeless.

"Skulduggery,"

"Skulduggery's dead," said Ghastly, the words coming out more harshly than he intended. 

"I know, but he's back"

 "I saw his body," said Hopeless. "There wasn't enough of him to come back, not even as a wraith's toenail."

"I saw him," Erskine repeated. 

A flash of white-hot anger filled Ghastly. "You must have hit your head very hard then. If any of part of Skulduggery remained on this earth, he would have found a way back to us. He would never abandon us."

Erskine flinched at the uncharacteristic steel in Ghastly's voice. Yet his own voice was soft, almost tender when he spoke: "He's not the man you remember anymore. He's changed."

 

 

 

**_iii._  **Spring changed to summer. Summer faded to autumn. Autumn mouldered to winter. Time moved cylindrically. It was almost spring again, when Ghastly finally understood what Erskine's words had meant.

Mevolent's allies had laid siege to Inishmor. The Sanctuary's stronghold was on the verge of being overrun. The situation was dire. Ghastly fought savagely, desperately. His back to the ocean, high up on the cliffside. They were outnumbered. One by one then men by his side fell. Ghastly kept fighting. 

And then he saw it. A wall of flame, cutting through swathes of men. Their armour turned red-hot, cooking the flesh inside. Hair and fabric ignited. 

The reek of burning meat. Some died where they stood. Some threw themselves to the mercy of the waves and the rocks below. 

A mockery of a man stood across the battlefield, surrounded by a ring of hellfire. Flames licked at torn rags clothing exposed bone. The enemy fell, helpless and screaming. 

Ghastly wanted to run, but he gripped his shortsword tighter instead. The flames did not touch him. Nor did they touch his company. He took a step forward, staring death in the face. Death stared back. 

"Hello," it said in Skulduggery's familiar velvety tone.

Ghastly continued to stare. Awash with fresh horror. This thing was not Skulduggery. It was not possible. 

"Well, this is rather awkward," it said. "I wasn't expecting to see you here. I thought you'd be in Minsk with Erskine and Hopeless."

Ghastly said nothing. It didn't matter how much it sounded like his boyhood companion, his brother. It couldn't be him. Because if it was... If it was, he had a duty. An honour.

"Are you going to say anything?"

"You're not Skulduggery," Ghastly managed, the word stumbling off his tongue without forethought or grace. 

"I didn't say I was. But the fact that you brought up my name unprompted would suggest that you  _do_  recognise me as Skulduggery."

That sounded like something Skulduggery would have said. 

Gods above, if this was him... Skulduggery would not want to be undead. Unthinking. Unfeeling. If this what remained of Skulduggery Pleasant, then Ghastly was honour-bound to help him find rest. It was Skulduggery would have done for him, had their situations been reversed. It was the right thing to do, the only thing that could be done. 

"I wouldn't try it if I were you," he said, casually. 

"Try what?" Ghastly asked, buying for time so he could decide what to do. 

"Skewering me your sword. There's not really anything to skewer. I'll admit, having your bones cut in half hurts like the devil. but it's not stopped me yet. And frankly, I doubt get close enough, you were never that good with a sword. You never bested me once in a duel."

"That's because you're a cheat. You always were. And now you've cheated death it seems."

"Ah, yes. My death. We should probably talk about that."

 


End file.
